Compelling Policy Question: What should be the goal of Native American Policy?

Policy Case Study:

(S. 54) to provide for the allotment of lands in severalty to Indians on the various reservations and to extend the protection of the laws of the United States and the Territories over the Indians (modified)

The President of the United States is authorized to allot the Indian reservation land. The land should be divided and given to members of the Tribe. To each head of a family, one-quarter of a section; to each single person over eighteen, one-eighth of a section; To each orphan child under eighteen, one-eighth of a section; and, To each other single person under eighteen, or person born before the allotment of the lands of a reservation, one-sixteenth of a section.

Sec. 5. The titles for the allotments will be held by the Government for 25 years. After 25 years the United States will give the title to the Indian. After all eligible Indians have been allotted their land, the Government may purchase remaining reservation land to sell to actual settlers. The money made by these sales will be used by Congress to educate and civilize the members of the tribe

SEC. 6. Every member of the tribes of Indians to whom allotments have been made shall have the benefit of and be subject to the laws, both civil and criminal, of the State or Territory in which they live. Every Indian born inside the United States who has taken allotments, or who has voluntarily taken up, his residence separate and apart from any tribe of Indians therein, and has adopted the habits of civilized life, is hereby declared to be a citizen of the United States, and is entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities of such citizens.

Sec. 10. Congress will have the right to sell land not allotted to Indians to railroads.

Historical Context

Before Europeans arrived in the Americas most tribes were communal, Individuals did not own the land. This was very different from the European's value of private property. The Europeans who arrived in America claimed the "Right of Discovery", arguing since they didn’t think the Natives were using the land to its fullest, the Europeans had a right to it.

When the United States won its Independence, and it became the job of the U.S. to determine policy towards Natives rather than Great Britain. The U.S. government debated how much sovereignty tribes have and who would control Indian policies, the federal government or the states. Tribes were treated like foreign sovereign nations through negotiated treaties.

In 1823, the Supreme Court ruled in the First Marshall Decision that Indians had some claim to land, but a less than right of discovery. The U.S. has absolute title, not Natives. Then in the 1830's the Cherokee tribe, which had adopted white farming methods, laws and even religion, was being forced out of Georgia to Indian Territory in Oklahoma by the Georgia Government. The Cherokee argued they were a sovereign nation based on treaties, and should be treated like a State. Their case went all the way to the Supreme Court, where Marshall said they are "domestic dependent nations”, and possess a right to “self-government,". He said that the federal government, not the state of Georgia, governs the tribe. Georgia couldn't force the Cherokee off their land.

In response to the Marshall Decision, President Andrew Jackson, a general with whom the Cherokees had fought, supposedly said, "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." Jackson used the Army to round up the Cherokee, and march them to Oklahoma. This is known as the "Trail of Tears".

The first century of United States and Native American policy was marked by the creation of many treaties. Between 1778 and 1868, 367 tribal treaties were made by the U.S., recognizing tribes as sovereign nations, but these treaties were regularly broken.

Sometimes when natives would take up arms to defend themselves from the Americans who were encroaching on their territory. In 1876 George A. Custer and his men were tracking a group of Sioux who were disobeying Government orders. He and his men rode into a camp of warriors and were all killed.

In 1877 Secretary of the Interior Schurz first recommended allotment of land for Native tribes- this means a tribe’s land would be divided up between the members of the tribe.

1877 Nez Percé war- After fighting to maintain their territory, Chief Joseph led his people on a retreat to Canada. They were caught, and he surrendered: “I will fight no more, forever” speech

1879 House Committee on Indian Affairs reported a general allotment bill

1880 Senator Coke introduces S.1773, for allotment, no action taken by Congress.

By 1885- the U.S. Government had issued over 1,290 certificates of allotment

1885- First version of S.54 is introduced to Congress.

1887- the white population of the U.S is 60 million. Many wanted more land opened up. Many believed reservation system kept Natives from being self-sufficient.

Supporting Question #1: Why do some people believe assimilation of Native Americans should be the goal of Government policy?

Senator Henry Dawes (R)Massachusetts, (biography), Speech at the Lake Mohonk Conference of the Friends of the Indian, 1886 (modified/link to original)

Senator Dawes was the Chairman on the Committee of Indian Affairs. The Lake Mohonk Conference was organized by people interested in reforms in Native American affairs.

I started working on a law to secure the tribe’s reservation so it can not be taken from them wrongfully. I have come to the conclusion that the quicker the Indian is mixed into the community with the whites the better off he will be.

The theory of the bill is to treat the Indian as an individual. He shall have a home and be a citizen of the United States; he will be one of us, contributing his share to all that goes into make up the strength and glory of citizenship in the United States.

Our work must be done now, for the greed for the Indian's land grows every day. The men who want to take this land don’t care about the Indian’s right to the land based on a Government treaty. They are determined to take every acre of their land. We need to act before every acre disappears from under him forever.

That he will pass away as an Indian I don't doubt, and that very rapidly.

The question is, will it be into a place as a citizen among the people of this land, or it will be into a vagabond and a tramp? He will disappear as an Indian of the past, for the Indian of the past has no place to live in this country.

John Quincy Smith, Report to the Secretary of Interior, 1876, (modified/link to original)

Smith, (R)Ohio, was the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

It is doubtful whether civilization is possible without individual ownership of land. The records of the past and the experience of the present testify that the soil should be made secure to the individual by law, and that nothing less will encourage men to put forth their best efforts. The law should require the head of each Indian family to accept the allotment of land, to be the property of himself and his lawful heirs, instead of allowing the land to be a tribal possession. Such allotments should be transferable only among Indians.

I know this idea will meet with opposition from the Indians. Like the whites, they have ambitious men, who will resist any change reducing the authority they have worked for by personal effort or by inheritance. But it is essential that these men and their claims should be pushed aside and that each individual should feel that his home is his own; that he owes no allegiance to any man; that he has a direct personal interest in the soil on which he lives, and that that interest will be faithfully protected for him and for his children by the Government.

President Chester A. Arthur, Suggestions on Indian Policy Reform during Annual Message to Congress, 1881 (modified/link to original)

Chester A. Arthur, (R)New York (bio), became President when President Garfield was assassinated.

The question of Indian affairs has been an embarrassment from this Government. We have always tried to find the easy solution rather than work on the great problem. Thousands of lives have been sacrificed and hundreds of millions of dollars spent in the attempt to solve the Indian problem.

In order to civilize the Indians, make them citizens, and give them rights, there is a need for legislative action. I recommend making the laws of the United States apply to the Indian reservations within their borders.

First. The Indian should receive the protection of the law. He should be allowed to maintain in court his rights of person and property. He has begged for this privilege. Its would help him in his progress toward civilization.

Second. The allotment in severalty, to the Indians, of a piece of land for their own use, is demanded for their present welfare and their permanent advancement.

There is reason to believe a large number of Indians would be convinced to end their tribal relations and start farming. Many of them realize their hunting days are over and they should change. Giving them permanent ownership of land will encourage them to start farming.

The allotment system would have a powerful influence in dissolving the tribal bond, which is so prominent a feature of savage life, and which tends so strongly to perpetuate it.

Third. I advise a liberal appropriation for the support of Indian schools.

William Bagley, Report from the office of Siletz Indian Agency, Oregon, 1876 (modified/link to original)

Bagley was an Indian Agent.

For about eight years the soldiers remained here, after which time their services were considered no longer necessary. With their disappearance came a more rapid advance toward civilization. The next eight years, under the direction of Hon. Ben Simpson, they were considerably improved in their condition, through their old superstition and their prejudice still clung to them.

From their first occupancy of this reservation, they have been told that the treaties made with them when they agreed to leave their native country and come to the reservation would be ratified, and the promises made by the Government would be kept. Such, however, has not been the case.

Since they have occupied this reservation they have been in constant fear of being removed to another country, to make room for the ever-intruding white man. The constant noise of the whites asking for the opening to settlement by whites of the reservation, kept them uneasy.

It is important that these Indians be secured in their homes by allotment of land in severalty, and giving each a title to as much as he is capable of farming. Nothing gives them so much uneasiness as the constant efforts of some white men to have them removed to some other country.

Alice Fletcher “The Crowning Act,”Morning Star 7, 1887: (modified)

anthropologist Alice C. Fletcher was an agent for the US Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs. (biography) Below picture is of Fletcher with Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce

The Indian may now become a free man; free from the control of the tribe; free from the domination of the reservation system; free to enter into the body of our citizens. This bill may therefore be considered as the Magna Carta of the Indians of our country.

Under the combined influence of the chiefs and the agency system, the Indians are kept in the irresponsibility of childhood.

The only solution is the breaking-up of the Reservation and giving individual ownership of pieces of land. This will end tribal ownership, and, tribal authority.

By dividing the land, the individual would be set free and will gain the rewards of his own work. Establishing the legal family will help them advance socially.

Any legislation about land for the Indians, the allotment of the land in severalty should be made made mandatory. It should not be an option for the Indians.

To leave severalty optional and dependent upon a two-thirds vote of any tribe, is to rivet the chains which bind the Indian to a hopeless position.

It is surely imposing too grave a task upon the Indian to bid him decide his own future condition; particularly as he is now standing facing the forward rush of civilization with its difficult ideas, laws and customs, already closing him in with irresistible force.

Memorial of the Members of the Omaha Tribe of Indians for A grant of land in severalty, 1882 - (modified/link to original)

This petition was sent to the Committee on Indian affairs when the members of the Omaha Tribe applied for allotment.

We, members, of the Omaha tribe of Indians, have taken out certificates of allotment of land, or entered upon claims within the limits of the Omaha reserve. We have worked upon our lands from three to ten years; each family has from five to fifty acres under cultivation; many of us have built houses on these lands, and all have worked to make permanent homes for ourselves and our children.

We therefore petition your honorable body to grant to each one a clear and full title to the land on which he has worked.

We earnestly pray that this petition may receive your favorable consideration, for we now labor with discouragement of heart, knowing that our farms are not our own, and that any day we may be forced to leave the lands on which we have worked.

We desire to live and work on these farms where we have made homes, that our children may advance in the life we have adopted. To this end, and that we may go forward with hope and confidence in a better future for our tribe, we ask of you, titles to our lands.

Wa-jepa, Ezra Freemont, letter in the Memorial of the Members of the Omaha Tribe of Indians for A grant of land in severalty, 1882 (modified/link to original)

Freemont was a member of a group of Omaha Indians who sent petitions to the Committee on Indian affairs applying for allotment.

Before I began to farm I was just a wild Indian, doing as I pleased, going round the country looking for death. We have no government on the reserve. We have trouble all the time, which we would not have if we had government and law. We want these.

We are right among the white people, and as we have no law we can’t get along very well. There are persons living on the reserve who have certificates of allotment: they believe that the land is theirs, and that they can always keep it. I know differently. I know that the certificates are not good. I want a title to my land, then the land will be mine.

If the government does not give to us titles I do not know, what we are going to do. I went on my farm with my certificate. I believed the land was mine. I have found out the land is not mine, that the government can take it away.

We are going to ask for our titles. As long as the government does not give them, we will ask until the government gets tired. We won’t stop asking till we get our titles.

Ma-he-wa-the, Richard Robinson, letter in the Memorial of the Members of the Omaha Tribe of Indians for A grant of land in severalty, 1882 (modified/link to original)

Robinson was a member of a group of Omaha Indians who sent petitions to the Committee on Indian affairs applying for allotment.

When I was a young man I wanted to work. When I first tried to plow I used to fall down, for I did not know how to handle the plow. I thought that one day all the Indians must work, that I would try to learn while I was young, it would be easier for me.

When I first saw the white people, I saw that they worked, and all they had seemed had seemed to sparkle. I wondered where this glistening came from. I saw that they worked at the ground and it was from that that they got the sparkle.

I want a title to my land. I hope the white people will help us so that we may have law upon the reserve.

I hope that in the future some of the children of the Omahas may be among the lawyers of the land. The reason the Omahas are still in existence, is, I think, because they have worked, are working, and trying to help themselves.

Sin-de-hah-hah, William Hamilton, letter in the Memorial of the Members of the Omaha Tribe of Indians for A grant of land in severalty, 1882 (modified/link to original)

Hamilton was a member of a group of Omaha Indians who sent petitions to the Committee on Indian affairs applying for allotment.

Long ago we never used to think of anything but our old ways of living.

When we moved out upon our claims I thought I would be the first to break land, and I was.

I have seen that it is good to work and I do not think I would stop working. When I am working on my land I am always thinking of my children.

I wish I could work without feeling a bit worried. When I hear anything about people wanted to get this land away it just frightens me!

I wish it could be so that the land would be always mine. I do not care so much for myself as for my children, for I hope when I die to leave something to them. That is the way the white men do. I think they leave what they have to their children.

I want a title to my farm. I think of it every day, and I have come to-day to tell you so.

Helen Hunt Jackson, A Century of Dishonor, 1881 (modified/link to original)

Jackson’s was an author and a reformer (bio) her book was trying to convince the U.S. Government to change its Native American policies. She sent a copy to every congressman

There are 253,000 Indians in the United States. There are nearly three hundred different tribes and bands.

President after president has appointed commission after commission to report on Indian affairs, and to make suggestions as to the best methods of fixing them. The reports suggest telling the truth, keeping promises, making fair deals, dealing justly in all ways and all things. The reports are printed, and then ignored. In 1869 they wrote, “the history of the Government connections with the Indians is a shameful record of broken treaties and unfulfilled promises. The history of the white man's connection with the Indians is a record of murder, outrage, and robbery.”

To think that it would be easy to make a law, to undo the pains of the past, to set the Indian policy of the country right for the future, and make the Indians at once safe and happy, is a mistake. The idea that simply making all Indians citizens of the United States would be an instant cure for all their problems, is wrong.

All good plans for their safety and salvation will allow them to become citizens as soon as they are ready, and must protect them till then in their rights.

However difficult it might be to give justice to the Indian, something should be done. Steps can be taken toward righting the wrongs, curing the ills, and wiping out the disgrace to America of the present conditions of our Indians.

The cheating, robbing, breaking promises, and the refusal to protect the law to the Indian's rights of property, "of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." must all stop.

Report from the Secretary of the Interior, and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs 1856, (modified/link to original)

As long as the Native Americans are not citizens of the United States, their rights of property will remain insecure against invasion from white settlers.

The doors of the federal courts being closed for them while they are treated as wards and dependents of the Government.

They can now only partially exercise the rights of free government. They have little ability to influence those who make the laws that impact their people.

While they continue individually to gather the crumbs that fall from the table of the United States, most will not have anything to do, they will not be thinking about the future, and they will be in debt.

Only a few will work, act wisely, and have freedom.

The absence of individual ownership of their own land deprives every one among them of the main incentive to work for their future - and work is the one way to create the results the people depend upon to prosper..

Thomas Jefferson Morgan, Commissioner of Indian Affairs (modified/link to original)

First- The abnormal position occupied by the Indians in this country can not much longer be maintained. The reservation system belongs to a “vanishing state of things” and must soon cease to exist.

Second- The logic of events demands the absorption of the Indians into our national life, not as Indians, but as American citizens.

Third- The Government must treat each Indian as a man, be allowed a man’s rights and privileges, and be held to the performance of a man’s obligations. Each Indian is entitled to his proper share of the inherited wealth of the tribe, and to the protection of the courts in his “life, liberty, and Pursuit of happiness.”

Fourth- The Indians must conform to “the white man’s ways,” peaceably if they will, forcibly if they must. They must adjust themselves to their environment, and conform to our civilization. This civilization may not be the best possible, but it is the best the Indians can get. They can not escape it, and must either conform to it or be crushed by it.

Sixth- The tribal relations should be broken up, socialism destroyed, and the family and the autonomy of the individual substituted. The allotment of lands in severalty, the establishment of local courts and police, the development of a personal sense of independence, and the universal adoption of the English language are means to this end.

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The settled policy of the government is to break up reservations, destroy tribal relations, settle Indians upon their own homesteads, incorporate them into the national life, and deal with them not as nations or tribes or bands, but as individual citizens.

This might seem like a somewhat rapid reduction of the lands of the Indians, but most of the land being taken is not being used for any purpose whatever.

The Indians do not need it and will not be likely to need it at any future time, and they will be well paid for it.

The sooner the tribal relations are broken up and the reservation system done away with the better it will be for all concerned. If there were no other reason for this change, the fact that individual ownership of property is the universal custom among civilized people of this country would be sufficient reason for urging the handful of Indians to adopt it

Charles Cornelius Coffin Painter, Our Indian Policy As Related to The Civilization Of The Indian, (modified/link to original)

Painter was an agent of the Indian Rights Association, he reported on Indian settlements and reservations

The reservation line is a wall that keeps out civilization

We wish the Indians to become industrious, self-reliant, self-supporting.

They can acquire no title to the land they would farm until they abandon their people and their inheritance.

We are denying them the rewards of their work; we ruin their want to labor, we are only encouraging idleness and poverty.

Seriously, let us ask ourselves if the reservation policy is really working. Why should we continue this system?

What would you put in place of this? I would at once break down the reservation walls and let civilization go in; I would give the Indians title to a piece of land for their personal use. I would sell the rest of the land for their benefit. I would make them subject to the laws and give them their protection. I would give them citizenship with all its privileges and duties.

In time there will be nothing different from the Indian to other citizens, except the bronze of his skin, and the memory of his great wrongs we have done to him, but have worked to fix with our late apology.

Thomas Skinner (D)North Carolina (bio), Speech to Congress on S.54, 1887 (modified/link to original)

There has never before has there been such a need for a general Indian policy to solve the Indian problem.

The white civilizations of the East and the West have met. The Indian’s food supply is destroyed. The Indian must either perish, depend upon the Government for support, or abandon his habits, and rise to the level of the civilization surrounding him and take on the duties and responsibilities of American citizenship. Starvation and poverty, or independent, self-supporting citizenship— the Indian must choose, or we, as his guardians, must choose for him.

It is useless to grieve over the wrongs that the red man has suffered at the hands of the white man, The Indian as he is today demands attention. What will be his future? Will he remain a poor savage, blocking civilization, a burden upon the people? Or shall he be made a civilized tax-payer, and add to the wealth of the country?

How can we lead him to citizenship? Tribes and reservations must be broken up; that lands must be allotted in severalty, surplus lands must be sold to bring the white man into contact with the Indians. This bill points out the most direct route to citizenship.

Give the red man the black man's chance. Let him become a citizen. Give him the same protection that is given to white men and the black, and the Indian will soon cease to be burden to the Government, and will soon help add to the material wealth of the country. The Indian problem will be solved.

Thomas Nast, "Move on!" Has the Native American no rights that the naturalized American is bound to respect?:Harper’s Weekly, 1871 (summary)

Thomas Nast, The new Indian war Now, no sarcastic innuendos, but let us have a square fight, Harper’s Weekly, 1878 (summary)

Native man, "This is the Noble Red Man", standing on a chest of drawers between Carl Schurz, of the "Interior Department", and General Philip Sheridan, of the "War Department"; a peace pipe extends from his pocket towards Schurz and a tomahawk from another pocket towards Sheridan; General William Tecumseh Sherman stands in the shadow of the doorway behind Sheridan.

Thomas Nast, “Give the Natives a Chance, Mr. Carl: The Cheapest and Quickest Way of Civilizing Them,” Harper’s Weekly, 1880 (summary)

Vance, Parsloe and Co. “Lo, the Poor Indian,” 1875. (summary)

Summary of Vance, Parsloe and Co.’s “Lo, the Poor Indian,”

The Indian is stereotypically shown drunk, with torn, mixed White and Indian style clothing.

His face has a foolish countenance.

He carries useless “tools”: a rifle, hatchet, and knife.

The phrase at the bottom, “Oh why does the White man follow my path!” possibly mocks the “noble savage” imagery that also was being used in the late 19th century.

This cartoon works to rationalize the federal government’s breaking of treaty agreements and the fraudulent management of Indian property and funds that characterized these times.

The phrase “Lo, the poor Indian,” is from Alexander Pope’s 18th century “An Essay on Man”:

“Lo, the poor Indian whose untutored mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind.” Pope’s imagery illustrates the noble savage theme.

Thomas Nast, "Robinson Crusoe Making a Man of his Friday”, 1870 (summary)

“Educating the Indians--a female pupil of the government school at Carlisle visits her home at Pine Ridge Agency,” Frank Leslie's Illustrated newspaper, 1884.

Starting in the late 19th Century a number of boarding schools were opened to "assimilate" American Indian youth. The children were taken from the reservations and sent to the schools. Carlisle was opened in 1879 by former U.S. soldier Richard H. Pratt, who once said the best policy for the government would be to: “Kill the Indian, and Save the Man”.

Pine Ridge Agency was the Oglala Lakota reservation.

Uncle Sam’s Indian Policy, The Wasp, 1886

Geronimo and Our Indian Policy, The Wasp, 1886 (summary)

Frederick Keller, “The Three Troublesome Children”, The Wasp, 1881 (summary)

What to do with them, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, 1883

Text below cartoon: "Our Artist comes to the help of the Indian Department, which, according to a contemporary,

'is puzzled to know what to do with the captured Apaches.'"

(two illustrations), Harper’s Weekly, 1880

(top) S.C. McCutcheon, “A Night on the Sound”

(bottom) P. Frenzeny, “Muster Day on an Indian Reservation”

The top cartoon shows drunks sleeping in the saloon of a ship

The bottom cartoon shows Recruiters Signing Native Americans Up for the Military.

Thomas Nast, Give the Red Man a Chance, Harper’s Weekly, 1881 (summary)

P. Frenzeny, “Distributing Supplies to Indians”, Harper's Weekly, 1882

Section #2 Guiding Question: Why do some people believe oppose a Government policy of assimilating Native Americans?

George W. Harkins, Speech on Indian Rights, 1886 (modified/link to original)

Harkins was a leader of the Chickasaw tribe who came to Washington D.C. to represent the tribe. He wrote a "Letter to the American People" in 1832 in response to the Indian Removal policies of the Government, it was published all over the United States.

Why are such radical changes in our laws trying to be made, such as those in the Dawes Act? Why hurry to force the Indians to take their lands as individuals?

There is one answer. The white man and railroad companies want the land.

It is said that the Indians still have too much land. Is it a crime for an Indian tribe to hold more land than its people can use now, but will need for its increasing population? Then why not declare it a crime for corporations to own large bodies of land? Isn’t it an outrage against the homeless for a rich farmer to own more land than he can farm or to hold land for his children and grandchildren?

While they suggest dividing a small part of the Indians’ lands among them and making them citizens, it is not planned to just give them the titles. The Government will control the title to the land until they think the Indian is ready to own his own farm, but they have broken every promise it ever made him.

It is said that this bill is supported by many friends of the Indians, they believe that it is the only plan for saving any of our lands. Study the history of Indian Territory. Under tribal titles they have become civilized and self-supporting. They have elected governments, established schools, built churches and developed the industries common to civilization. Shouldn’t other tribes have a chance to do the same? These tribes own all the land, but everyone owns their own home. The severalty plan has been tried on a number of tribes, and always failed.

In conclusion, give the tribes their reservations, and schools for their children. They will become civilized, self-supporting people, and citizens of the United States

Resolution of the Council of the Seneca Nation of New York to Congress protesting S.19, a bill for allotment, 1881 (modified/link to original)

To the honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America:

The Seneca Nation most respectfully and earnestly protests against the passage of Senate bill 19 for the following reasons:

1. The Seneca Nation is satisfied with its present status, and cannot hope to benefit by the proposed change.

2. The bill modifies a treaty without the Seneca’s consent.

3. It would replace the tribal relations the Seneca hurting the interests, and the prosperity, of the Indians of said nation.

4. The Seneca fear allottees will have their land taken from them.

6. Under the Seneca’s constitutional government they are rapidly improving in their social condition. The people are happy and prosperous, and there are no paupers in the community.

This prosperity is largely due to the system by which the lands are owned in common, controlled by the national councils. Under this system no Indian can be deprived of a right to land.

This system is guaranteed to us by treaties, and we protest against it being suspended and replaced by any experimental one.

7. This bill will make the Indians subject to all the laws of the State, but they are not given any voice in the creation of those laws. Do not impose upon them a burden which your noble ancestors found it impossible to bear—that of taxation without representation.

Political Platform of Cherokee Independents, The Chieftain, 1886. (modified/link to original)

The Chieftain was an Indian owned newspaper.

Art. 4 "We are emphatically opposed to the establishment of any kind of United States territorial government over the Cherokee nation and people." Which is a declaration that they are opposed to an improved form of government; that they are distrustful of the political institutions which would assimilate them in social life with the American people; and that the wheels of progress must not be allowed to roll over that darkened and unprogressive land.

Art. 5 "We are opposed to selling one foot of our Cherokee soil for white settlement, for in less than one year the country would be settled up with white settlers who would be calling on congress to establish a territorial government or state which would embrace not only the entire Cherokee nation, but the present Indian Territory."

Ponca Chief White Eagle, the Removal of the Ponca Indians from the Dakota Territory to the Indian Territory, 1879 (modified/link to original) Chief White Eagle's Biography

A white man came to our reserve and said "The President has sent me to tell you that you must pack up and move to Indian Territory."

I answered him by saying, "Give us time to think about it."

He jumped to his feet and said, "The President told me to take you to the Indian Territory. When the President says anything it must be done."

I answered, "I have never broken any of my treaties with the government. Why does the President want to take my land away from me for? This is our land. My people have lived and died on this land. I have planted crops and have performed all my promises to the President. We have always been peaceful. I have broken no treaties, and the President has no right to take our land."

He said, "Stop your talking; don't say any more. The President told me to remove you. The President is going to send all the Indians to the Indian Territory.

I answered, "You have no right to move us in this way without our consent or will." The government has no right to it. It is ours and we do not wish to part with it.

He said, "The President says your treaty is worthless. When you get to the new country he will give you a new treaty, and you shall have a title to your land there.”

We could not believe that the white people of the country would let such a wrong thing be done. We would rather die here on our land than be forced to go. Kill us all here now, so that in the future men will say 'They died rather than be forced to leave their land. They died to maintain their rights.”

E. Jane Gay, With The NEZ PERCES Alice Fletcher in the Field, (modified/link to original)

Anthropologist Alice C. Fletcher was an agent for the US Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs. E. Jane Gay served as the photographer for Fletcher's trips to reservations.

We went to explain the allotment system to tribes, and tell them in exchange for breaking up their tribe, giving up their tribal rights under U. S. treaty, they will be given American citizenship and a small farm piece of their tribal land once it it divided.

Imagine yourself, some bright May morning, sitting and looking at your fields. They have been in the family for generations. You see your grandparents, standing in the wheat, you see your grandchildren playing in the flowers. You are woken up by the slam of the front gate. An agent comes around the house and tells you that the Empress of all the Indies has sent him to divide your lands according to act of Parliament.

You stare wildly while the man explains, that, as head of the family, will be given 160 acres of your own land; your boy Tom, being over eighteen, will have 80 acres; and the little girl, the pet, the black-eyed darling, she will have 40 acres.

Mechanically you repeat, "160,80,40, -- 280 acres." That is just the size of your the cows and horses pasture; but what of the rest?

The man says: "The remainder of your land will stay just as it is, unless you want to sell it." Ah! It looks queer, does it?

Little by little you begin to think. You become suspicious. You look exactly like those Native Americans looked when they were told about allotment.

Chief Satanta, Speech at the Medicine Lodge Treaty meetings, 1868 (modified/link to original)

Satanta was a Kiowa Chief

All the land south of the Arkansas belongs to the Kiowas and Comanches, and I don’t want to give away any of it. I love the land and the buffalo, and will not part with it. I want you to understand well what I say. I want you to understand, also, that the Kiowas and Comanches don’t want to fight, and have not been fighting since we made the Little Arkansas treaty.

I hear a good deal of talk from the Government Commissioners, but they never do what they say. I don’t want any of these Medicine lodges [schools and churches] built in this country. I want the papooses brought up exactly as I am. When I make peace there is no end of it.

I have heard that you intend to set apart a reservation near the mountains. I don’t want to settle; I love to roam over the prairie; I feel free and happy; but when we settle down we get pale and die.

I have told you the truth. I have no little lies about me; but I don’t know how it is with the Commissioners. Are they as clear as I am? A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers; but when I go up to the Arkansas river I see camps of soldiers on its banks. These soldiers cut down my timber, they kill my buffalo; and when I see that my heart feels like bursting; I feel sorry.

Ten Bears’ Speech during Medicine Lodge Treaty meetings, 1867 (modified)

Ten Bear’s was the Chief of the Comanche Tribe. This speech was given during the Medicine Lodge meetings. The Medicine Lodge meetings were held in Kansas and were created to move the Tribes to Reservations.

My heart is filled with joy when I see you here. I know that you had come to do good to me and my people. I looked for benefits which would last forever, and so my face shines with joy as I look upon you. There has been trouble between us, but you sent the first soldier, we sent the second.

Two years ago I came upon this road, following the buffalo, that my wives and children might eat. But the soldiers fired on us, and since that time there has been a noise like that of a thunderstorm and we have not known which way to go.

But there are things which you have said which I do not like. You said that you wanted to put us upon reservation, to build our houses and make us medicine lodges. I do not want them. I was born on the prairie where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I want to die there and not within walls. I lived like my fathers before me, and like them, I lived happily.

When I was at Washington the Great Father [president of the US] told me that all the Comanche land was ours and no one would stop us from living upon it. So, why do you ask us to leave the rivers and the sun and the wind and live in houses? Do not ask us to give up the buffalo for the sheep. The young men have heard talk of this, and it has made them sad and angry. Do not speak of it more.

What you now say we must live on is too small. Had we kept our land we might have done the things you ask. But it is too late. The white man has the country which we loved.

Russell Errett (R)Pennsylvania, Minority report of the House Committee on Indian Affairs, 1880 (modified/link to original) Errett's bio

The plan of this bill, in our judgement, the way to civilize the Indian. It does not make a farmer out of an Indian to give him a quarter-section of land. There are hundreds of thousands of white men who could not be turned into farmers just by giving him land.

Since before the discovery of America, the North American Indian has been a communist. Not in the offensive sense of modern communism, but in the sense of having community property. This is an important part of the Indian character. From our point of view, this is wrong, but it is a mistake for Congress to try to change it

The main purpose of this bill is not to help the Indian. It is to get the valuable Indian lands and open them up to white settlement. When the Indian has got his allotments, the rest of his land is to be put up to the highest bidder. He will be surrounded by a wall of fire, a line of white settlers, who will fence him in, and then surely crowd him out

True, the proceeds of the sale are to be invested for the Indians: but when the Indian is smothered out, will be none the better for it. Nothing can be surer than the eventual extermination of the Indian under the operation of this bill.

We will pave the way for the extermination of the Indian race upon this part of the continent. If this were done in the name of Greed, it would be bad enough: but to do it in the name of Humanity, promote we help the Indian by making him like ourselves, whether he wants to or not, is infinitely worse. This attempt to make him into a white man by act of Congress is unjustifiable.

Peter Newell, “A Natural Theory”, Harper’s Weekly, 1887 (summary)

Joseph Ferdinand Keppler, Our Indian policy - a house of cards , 1881 (summary)

Frank Bellew, "A School for Savages; or, Teaching the Young Idea not to Shoot", Harper’s Weekly, 1869 (summary)

Paul Thomas Brodie, Map showing Indian reservations with the limits of the United States, 1883 (source) (red on map shows territory)

F. Opper, “Move On, Maroon Brother, Move On!” Bill Nye’s History of the United States (source)

Text that went along with the cartoon in the book: The real Indian has the dead and unkempt hair of a busted buggy-cushion filled with hen feathers. He lies, he steals, he assassinates, he mutilates, he tortures. He needs Persian powder long before he needs the theology which abler men cannot agree upon. We can, in fact, only retain him as we do the buffalo, so long as he complies with the statutes. But the red brother is on his way to join the cave-bear, the three-toed horse, and the ichthyosaurus in the great fossil realm of the historic past. Move on, maroon brother, move on!

“Historical Caricature of the Cherokee Nation”, 1886 (Summary)

Thomas Nast, “Patience until the Indian is Civilized--So to Speak”, Harper’s Weekly, 1878 (summary)

Secy. of the Interior Schurz pacifying survivor of massacre by Indians

What were the results of the debate?

S.54 was passed in 1887 and became known as the “Dawes Act”

Consequence #1 - Impact on Native American lands

As a result of the debate many Native Americans were given allotments, but a great deal of reservation land was not allotted to Native Americans, and was then put up for sale (as seen in the advertisement below). The consequences of this are shown in the map below the advertisement:

Map of Loss of Native American Territory since 1492.

Source: Humbolt State University

In 1877 Native Americans had 154 million acres of land. Today it is 56.2 million.

Consequence #2 - Citizenship Rights

The Dawes Act gave citizenship to all Native Americans who accepted allotments and became "civilized".

It would not be until the 1924 Citizenship Act that all Native Americans officially became citizens.

While voting is supposed to be a right guaranteed to citizens, many states had discriminatory laws making it hard for Native Americans to vote. It would take the 1965 Voting Rights Act to protect Native Americans right to vote